Houston Restaurant Week: Crab Adventures at Ouisie’s Brunch

Ah yes, the glorious time of the year that is Houston Restaurant Weeks where you get to try all sorts of fun restaurants that you normally wouldn’t because of the prix fixe menus. For those of you who took Spanish as second language in high school, prix fixe (prounounced “prefix”) means that there are a selection of menu items paired together for a fixed price. It’s delightful. Especially the brunch! $25 gets you an appetizer, an entree and a dessert #stuffed.

Want a little frunch and/or drunch in your life? Check out Ouisie’s Table. HRW brings that 4 $$$$ restaurant down to 2 $$, so you can dine (and with bottomless mimosas) and get drunk with the finest of Houston’s elite. Like I said, it’s great.

Ouisie’s Table is a pretty upscale restaurant–there is a live pianist for peats sake! However, in terms of interior decoration, I feel like it could seriously use the help of a designer, or at glance at a few Pinterest pages or a houzz.com. It’s a mismach of random stuff, that could be elegant, but comes across more like a thrift shop with elegant French candle sticks placed next to oriental rugs with giant bamboo mirrors. It’s confusing. There is a giant chalk board on one side of the room announcing specials in uneven handwriting. And the HRW menu is, well, less than elegant. There was an Enron logo in one corner indicating that a) these menus either a) haven’t changed since 2001 or b) who ever made these menus–despite trying to celebrate Houston icon’s–is wildly insensitive to our cities history….

Okay rant over. Let’s get to the juicy part–or well tasty part–the food. Pulling out my extensive Chopped critiquing expertise (“What I have prepared for you to day”) I give you my comments, adventures, and impressions that we had with Ouisie’s HRW Brunch!

First Course

I would say the winner of this course is the Pear Salad. While creative in its orange/sweet potato combo, August is too hot of a season to enjoy a nice warm soup. And the crab cake presentation is, uh, bizarre to say the least.

Second Course

Winner here is the Fried Chicken. You can’t go wrong. And I guess if you throw an egg on it, it qualifies as brunch. The Crab Salad is literally a fried crab on a salad. Like holy cow adventure trying to watch someone eat that. It’s got the legs and pinchers and everything. Not for the faint of heart. And the Eggs Benedict were served cold-ish and not too original of a plate. The fruit could have been presented better. The grits were great tho!

Third Course

Ooooh tough call. All the dessert were fabulous. Including the Passion Fruit Cheesecake (not pictured). I wish I had unlimited space in my stomach to enjoy all of these. I think it depends if you want something fruity go for the Peach Cobbler. The dark chocolate is rich and a smaller serving. And the passion fruit cheesecake is light and flavorful. No one was chopped here.